A digital marketing funnel is simply the journey a prospect takes from being unaware of your brand to becoming a customer. By creating an effective funnel, you can guide your customer’s journey, and encourage a response.

Here’s why you need a digital marketing funnel:

You can automate your lead generation and so save time and money

You can reach an audience of people who have never heard of you

You attract through your content – no hard sell

You can reach people much earlier in their home selling journey

You can set it and forget it – and watch the leads come in for years to come.

Are you struggling to get your marketing funnels working for you?Or perhaps you’ve no idea what a marketing funnel does, but you know you probably need one?

In either case, this article is going to help you to understand what a funnel is, what it can do for you, and what you can do if yours doesn’t seem to be working.

First things first…

What is a marketing funnel?

A marketing funnel is a tool that shows how someone responds to your marketing, taking the journey from being a stranger to a client.Of course, not everyone will make the complete journey; some people may read a blog post you’ve written then disappear forever. Others may love your post so much they seek out more, before then going on to check out and like your Facebook page, watch your videos and download your free guide. Once they are smitten, it’s a small step for them to pick up the phone to you and arrange a valuation of their home. And given how ‘warm’ they are now, having consumed all your content before booking the valuation with you, they are much more likely to instruct you, and not one of your competitors.

The old-style marketing funnel

In the olden days (like, five years ago) marketing funnels looked like this:

Literally, you would pour prospective clients – vendors and landlords – in the top, and sales revenue would magically tumble out the bottom and into your bank account. All you had to do was make sure enough people entered your marketing funnel to account for the ones that wouldn’t make it through to the bottom.

The marketing funnel reinvented

It’s much more useful – and accurate – to think of a marketing funnel as a journey, like this:

So a stranger to you comes across your content, your Facebook page, or a letter from you – KNOW.

They take an action – maybe liking a Facebook post, or downloading a checklist – LIKE

You have a conversation with them by email or phone – TRUST

They book a valuation – TRY

They instruct you – BUY.

They have taken a journey with you, nurtured at each step.

Our marketing funnels work so well for us, we now have several, for different types of sellers. Almost everyone we go to see has had several touchpoints with our marketing funnels. They are an integral part of our marketing, and a big part of our success in generating £500k in instructed fees in our first 12 months.

So if marketing funnels are so effective, why are so many independent estate agents still using outdated marketing methods?

Here’s what doesn’t work:

Spending a ton on Google Adwords

One independent agent in Wimbledon I spoke to recently, spends £800 a month on Google Adwords. This brings her in, on average, two enquiries a month, so £400 each. But these are not quality market appraisals. Anyone who has to type into Google, estate agents in Wimbledon, is probably not the best quality vendor for you. Of course, they could be out of area, but more likely, they are at best, looking for a third agent valuation to make up the numbers, and at worst, simply looking for a transaction at the lowest cost.

Instead try: Google Display Network

Keeping your Rightmove rep happy with expensive extra features

Unless you’re a shareholder, don’t bother. There are plenty of better places to spend those extra few hundred pounds a month, for a far better return on your investment.

Instead try: nothing – just ditch it

Advertising every week in the paper

(Do people still do this??) Advertising your properties every week in the local newspaper to prove to vendors that you have plenty of quality stock so that they too will want to list their house with you, even though buyers do not read the paper and book viewings through it, is a very odd way of attracting new vendors.

Why not just market to vendors direct?

Instead try: PR

A beautiful and pricey website

One of my clients, Alison, from Bedford, commissioned a website from a local web company for £4,000. Within six months, she’d scrapped it, and built her own, for free, on WordPress. It looks better, and does exactly what it needs to do – capture leads from interested vendors and landlords.

Another of my clients – Peter from Aberdeen – was using the leading industry CRM software, spending £600 a month on it, as he had a large database. Within a month of working with me, he had cancelled the contract, and switched his email marketing to my recommended supplier, at £12 a month. It’s simpler, easier to use, and has features he needs, that the expensive version did not.

Canvassing isn’t dead, but it does need the kiss of life. If you just keep sending out thousands of leaflets to every man, woman and child in your area on a regular basis, then of course you will get some valuations. Throw enough mud at a wall and it will stick. But whilst you’re getting 3 new enquiries from 10,000 leaflets, you’re teaching 9,997 NOT to respond to your marketing. Can you afford to burn out your audience in this way?

Instead try: small numbers of direct mail

Time for a change – or become irrelevant

It’s time to stop sending out leaflets that people don’t want, and paying for expensive print advertising that people don’t read.

A simple 8-step funnel to get you through more doors:

1. Set up a landing page with a service like LeadPages or ClickFunnels, to offer a gift like a checklist or digital guide. A landing page is a web page with no navigation, which maximises conversion.

2. Integrate your landing page with an email service provider like AWeber or Infusionsoft. This means that when someone inserts their email address to get access to the guide you’re offering, their details get automatically added to your list.

3. The guide is automatically sent to the subscriber, via their email address.

4. The landing page redirects to a thank you page.

5. The thank you page offers a valuation.

6. If you place your Facebook re-targeting pixel on the landing page, you can then create a Facebook ads audience to send both the subscribers, and the non-subscribers, (those who visited the page but didn’t enter their details) a relevant Facebook advert.

7. Set up an email nurture sequence so that your new subscriber receives a series of relevant emails from you.

8. Add a call to action (CTA) to each email to motivate a response.

Some ideas for a ‘subscriber briber’

Make sure the title of your guide is specific so that when someone subscribes to receive it, you learn something about them. Here are a few ideas:

Moving with a Busy Family

Selling Your Bungalow

How to Sell Your Home for the Asking Price in Just 30 Days

Your Home Moving Checklist

Planning to Sell? Your Complete Guide to Doing it Right

Creating a digital marketing funnel isn’t easy. I know, because I’ve created about a hundred of them, for us and for other independent estate agents who wanted to get their lead generation on autopilot.

Would you like us to create your digital marketing funnels for you?

FireWave Blaze is launching in 2020, and by registering your interest early, you’ll be one of the first agents in the UK to benefit from having clever, attractive, vendor-focused marketing funnels created for you. Here’s where you register. We’ll be in touch to confirm your early registration and discuss the details with you, as they become available.

Sam

Questions before you register your area? Talk to us now on 015394 40892